


By Design

by calliglad



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliglad/pseuds/calliglad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The land is dying, and Merlin along with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Design

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Camelot Fleet artword challenge. Art by Followthehorse.

The land is dying, and Merlin along with it. He knows that Arthur can see it too, the way the flowers wilt as Merlin weakens, the way the sky is as ashen as his face, but he can't say why.

Morgana probably doesn't even know she's doing it.

It's hard, sometimes, all the time, to stop her, this overflow of magic and malice and arrogance, and while Merlin grows ever weaker, she blossoms. Her hair shines unnaturally in the half-light of day, her skin paler, lips redder, eyes crueller.

-

Months pass before there is anything like a confrontation. Merlin goes back to the empty council chamber for Arthur's dropped gloves and the doors quietly close behind him and do not open again. Morgana melts out of the new shadows to laugh at his confusion.

"Things have been set in motion, Emrys," she says, and Merlin feels his skin chill at that name coming from her lips. "There is nothing you can do to stop it. I have seen it, written in his destiny."

"Destiny isn't a surety," he says, but she laughs.

"Ignorant," she sneers. "That is exactly what destiny _is_."

The chamber goes dark, then swirls with colour. The pillars become trees, shedding red and golden leaves, the ceiling clouds over and belches lightning, the walls roar and suddenly they're not in the council chamber at all. Merlin is standing on the edge of a precipitous cliff, sea spray whipping his hair. Morgana watches him darkly, but he does not think she will kill him.

She is only playing.

"Is this it?" she says. "I had expected more."

Merlin curls his fingers, but doesn't speak. He will not rise to her provocation.

"Only, I had seen better of you. And I am never wrong."

He does not answer. Morgana's eyes are wild, yellow-ish green, and Merlin wonders what Morgause did to her.

"Maybe if Arthur were here," she continues. "If I had him by the throat, would you do it then? Would you try to kill me then, to save your precious Arthur?"

Merlin shivers with rage, which turns to fear as he feels her extend magical fingers towards Arthur.

"Get away from him," he commands, but shakily.

"From who?" she says innocently, curling her fingers into Arthur's chest, around his heart.

"Get away!"

Merlin grabs the sea with both hands and pulls it upwards in a huge wave. Morgana stops it with a splayed hand and it hangs there, motionless above their heads.

"That's more like it," she says. Fish glimmer through the water, then--

A knock.

The clifftop dissolves back into the council chamber and Morgana disappears as the door opens and  a guard enters.

"I heard a crash," he says.

Merlin looks around and finds the stained glass window smashed, the floor speckled with rain.

"Must've been the wind," he says.

-

Merlin and Morgana wage their battles through the earth.

Through the sky and the sea, the fields and the mountains. For every landslide she causes, Merlin sends storms. For every forest he thickens, she sends drought. Camelot is torn apart under their secret war.

-

Arthur doesn't see Morgana the way Merlin sees her. He must not be able to, for surely he would flinch away if he could see her true face.

Instead, Arthur smiles at her, blissfully unaware of the sunken eyes, the glint of teeth, the mane of hair. Merlin can barely look at her, but can no more bear to tell Arthur what he sees.

The castle is darker now, like the sun's rays cannot enter. Shadows lurk within shadows, flitting across peripheral vision. Merlin sticks close to Arthur, but does not remember Uther in time.

-

He finds Morgana in the throne room, sitting hunched over like a crow. She smiles at him when he closes the door and too many teeth glint in the darkness.

With every flash of lightning, she flickers between herself and something else. Something sharp and chaotic and evil, each thunderclap showing her for what she really is.

"You killed him," he says.

"Prove it," she replies, smiling.

There were sigils all over Uther's chambers, written in silver blood that only Merlin could see, the sulphurous air of magic. Morgana is holding a wicked knife, still dripping.

When he has nothing to say, her smile grows wider. "Now that he is dead, you have what you've always wanted. King Arthur. A chance for a united Albion. Shouldn't you be happy?"

Merlin watches her and fears for Arthur's life. He thinks of the Dragon's awful prophesy and, in his heart, does not doubt it.

Morgana disappears from Camelot, unexplained, leaving Merlin to Arthur's grief. Her absence hangs over the coronation, but Merlin thinks he sees her amongst the crowd, hooded and smiling.

-

Merlin feels Arthur limp to the crest of the hill, his feet crushing the grass, gathering the dew, feels him turn his face into the wind and breathe deeply, sadly.

"Come on, Merlin," he says, and when there's no answer, Merlin feels Arthur's gaze crawl over his face and the gloved hand that brushes his cheek is almost painful in its tenderness. "You're crying," he says.

Merlin can't tell. Merlin can't see anything at all except the dark and the rain that isn't there and Morgana's wicked, smiling mouth.

"Merlin? What's wrong? Look at me, Merlin!"

Arthur's voice stirs the air and Merlin's soul with it, but Morgana just laughs, high and cruel, and Merlin feels it rumble in his own chest, feels his own lips move when Morgana says,

"He can't see you, Arthur."

"Morgana?" Arthur gasps. "What--how--?"

"A warning," she says. "In payment for a friendship long past."

"A warning? For what-- Merlin, what does she mean?"

"Your time is near, Arthur Pendragon. Your destiny is growing tangible. One year from now, you will die."

She leaves Merlin with a suddenness that brings him to his knees. He looks up at Arthur, who is pale and shaken, and can think of nothing to say.

"Is it true?" Arthur says, eventually.

"Yes," Merlin replies, and something like betrayal washes through him. "It has been foreseen."

-

Arthur dies without fanfare, exactly one year later, on the banks of a river run red with blood. Avalon takes him, folds his body into the mists of eternity, leaving Merlin to wait. He watches the boat carry the King away and does not cry.

The sky weeps for him.

-

Later, when many hundreds of years have passed, when there is less of nature's emptiness to wage their wars, Merlin and Morgana meet again.

"I regret this," she says. "I do not have it in me to continue."

And after millennia of loneliness, Merlin can't bring himself not to forgive her.

  
  
 


End file.
